An interesting report from the law firm Cooley crossed my desk this week titled “Cooley Venture Financing Report” – ok, maybe not that interesting – but the report looked at their 2Q12 venture deals (n=82), so presumably a representative perspective on what is going on with valuations and, nearly as important, terms. The two headline […]

On the heels of the fundraising data for 2011, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the NVCA released the 4Q 2011 and full year VC investment data. It was yet another year when VC’s invested ($28.4 billion in 3,673 companies) meaningfully more than we raised ($18.2 billion by 169 funds) – and as I have said in the past, […]

The third quarter venture funding stats were released today by National Venture Capital Association (I am on the NVCA Executive Committee so am a big fan of their data) – always makes for entertaining reading. It is a little bit like looking for clues, especially in this market to help explain what the hell is going on out there. ..

The overall investment pace was quite impressive given that the quarter included a wild August in the stock market and the vacation slow down; investments totaled $6.95 billion in 876 deals. In 2Q11 there were 1,015 deals which raised $7.88 billion but in 3Q10 there were only 850 deals which raised $5.31 billion, well-below this past quarter. It feels like the VC industry is on pace to invest close to $28 billion this year, which continues to baffle me as VC’s will struggle to raise $15 billion in new funds. This will be the third consecutive year when the industry invested meaningfully more than it raised. That will probably end badly.

Couple of interesting observations I pulled out of the data with my calculator…

‘Tis the season – to be holding Compensation Committee meetings. This board committee is perhaps the most important committee – all investor directors want to be on this committee. The yearend review process is fraught with misgivings and misunderstandings as boards must review the team’s performance against a set of objectives developed 12 months ago. […]